TITLE: Life NoteAUTHOR: roseveareRATING: PG-13SUMMARY: Crossover with Death Note, vaguely cracky. Light Yagami would like it understood that he wants strict IQ testing enforced forthwith to make death note ownership a suitably exclusive club.LENGTH: 1200 words approxDISCLAIMER: Not mine, no profit, yadda yadda yadda.NOTES: Challenge fic for the op_fanforall anonymous meme on livejournal, written to the prompt "Shonen Jump crossovers."NOTES 2: So yeah, I wrote this crossover while vaguely drunk. Fear me. I apologise unreservedly to the entire fandoms of both.-----------

Life Note

"You! Oi, you, genius boy! You've got a monster!"

While this is unquestionably true, said monster by his shoulder perking up with interest and grinning now, Light has not especially been anticipating that one of the remedial class idiots might start leaping about pointing a finger and yelling this at earsplitting volume while he's merely walking between classes. There's no terror in the reaction either, only excitement. Ryuk does his annoying personal-space-invading-thing, peering close up into Light's face to say, "This one is interesting."

The creature - the one yelling, not the one getting in Light's face - charges across to them, elbowing other students out of the way. He's shorter than Light and maybe the same age or younger, has got hair that's a disarray of dark spikes, too-large eyes, a vacant too-keen expression and a really fucking gay hat. Light may have seen him around before, recently, but despite his near-perfect intellect the only name his memory can bring forth is 'Loopy', and he's sure that can't be right. 'Loopy' barges into Light and practically swings off his shoulder like a monkey. He's dragging something from a satchel as he does it.

That's not... it can't... nobody's that stupid...

...it's a death note.

"Oi, oi, oi, oi!" the other boy yells without pause for breath, thrusting the book into Light's hands. It brushes his wrist before he can pull back. A shinigami wearing a furtive expression fades into view at Loopy's back. "Lemme touch your book, now, I wanna see yours!"

"I don't have it," Light hisses irritably, aware that this conversation is even now being Direly Misinterpreted by the snickering cretins all around them. It's safe at home, he doesn't add. He can't really make a case for not knowing what the other boy is talking about, since he's just stared a death god in the face while barely blinking. Ryuk's smirking at the other shinigami now - a matted furry hulk of darkness with a few feathery bits trailing like a crest down his back, what may or may not be antlers, and a blue nose.

"Might've known you'd find a human like this," Ryuk says, with a crooning laugh.

The other shinigami looks like it might sulk, but just says a "Hello, Ryuk" of sullen courtesy.

Loopy blinks, then bursts out, "DAMN IT!" like it's the end of the world. "I want to see it! That's not fair trade, you got to see mine!"

Light is disinclined to endure another bout of shouting and even more attention. He's also reluctantly aware that it is best not to make an enemy of someone he knows can kill him easily and untraceably, because while he might not know Loopy the dunce-student, the whole fucking school knows Yagami Light, golden boy. So he growls, "Shut up," and produces his hidden slip of torn paper. He also uses the excuse of brushing it across the other boy's hand to remove the pincer-grip from his shoulder.

Loopy's big-eyed gaze meets Ryuk's.

"SOOOOO COOOOL!!!"

He would swear to it that eye sparkles spin out of the kid's face. Eye. Sparkles. Fuck. This is so embarrassing. As Loopy then proceeds to enquire of the death god the precise nature of his ability to use the bathroom, Light is tempted to write his own name on the piece of paper he's squirreling away again and just drop dead on the spot.

"How did you know?" Because Ryuk does not seem averse to answering the kid in graphic detail, and this is a conversation that needs to be cut short in so many ways.

"Because I've got the eyes, of course! But... you don't have the eyes." Loopy blinks at him. "How come?"

"Because I'm not about to make a trade like that for something I don't need?" Light sneers. There is a limit to how freely he can converse on this subject in the midst of several hundred students who're variously laughing at the fact they just saw the monkey grope the honour student. Even if the monkey apparently doesn't care what he says or what the school at large sees.

"Eh, that's dumb! I don't understand you at all, genius-boy!" Loopy waves the death note, the pages flap around freely, and Light spies something that leaves him without breath. "Don't you want to know the names of everyone you see, and save them if the numbers are low? What's the use in having this book-thing otherwise?"

The other students around them are dwindling in number now. Light is going to be late. Ryuk is laughing gently against the back of his neck, and it's unclear whether he's laughing at the other boy or at him. Someone with green hair from the freak crowd further down the corridor yells a hurry-up, interrupting anything else he might linger to say. Loopy grins brighter than the sun, spins around, and waves to them both as he dashes off. "See you later, genius-boy! You too, monster!"

But Light doesn't see him again.

He does make some investigations, because he strongly believes that there are grounds for improvement in the human race in some cases where those being weeded out aren't criminals, possibly never more so than in this instance. But he can't find anyone with a name like 'Loopy' on the school register, and he can't find that stupid grinning face in a quick search of the computerised records, and he does after all have more pressing things to think about and a far more worthwhile opponent in the weeks and months after that.

But it still taunts him, sometimes -- wondering about the blank pages of Loopy's empty death note, and that traitor thread of uncertainty if it was really the other boy who was missing the point.

END

The author would like to thank you for your continued support. Your review has been posted.